Late
by Stylin' Breeze
Summary: The train was late. It had to be late. If it wasn't, Bokuto was in a mess of trouble.


**Something I wrote awhile ago in response to a prompt.**

 **And for readers from countries with developed and widespread rail networks, train stations like this do exist in America. I went to one, served by one train per day (fortunately mine was on time).** **Be grateful for nice, frequent rail service.**

* * *

The train was late. It had to be late.

Kotaro Bokuto swayed mindlessly outside the rural train depot on the plains of Utah, USA. Slightly bending tracks curved gently along the at-grade platform. Monolithic rocks soaring into the sky along the horizon—at one time majestically beautiful to Kotaro's eyes—now merely highlighted how desolate the region was. Kotaro was the only one here at this middle-of-nowhere locale, waiting for the train that still hadn't arrived.

At least, Bokuto _hoped_ it hadn't arrived.

The train was scheduled for 4:12 p.m., but three hours later, and Bokuto once more craned his head to the edge of the tracks to see nothing. His unauthorized trip on the cross-country, diesel-drawn Pullman gave him a few days to himself away from the team for a long weekend, but during an exhausted afternoon nap, he overslept in his motel room. He had to be back tomorrow morning, or the coach would know he'd snuck off. Akaashi could only cover for him so much. Kotaro checked his phone once again and tried to swallow in the searing, evening, 80-degree-Fahrenheit heat. It was 7:30.

He had been here since 4:15.

The cab driver dropped Kotaro off at 4:14. Upon arriving, Kotaro scanned the departure horizon, finding no trace of the clunky train. Surely they would have tried to stop on the assumption of picking up a ticketed passenger, so Bokuto would have seen them pull away if they'd been on time and gave up waiting for him. He knew it had to be late.

Bokuto cast his gaze the opposite direction now. Above the cresting hills a thunderstorm billowed in the pink sunset. Kotaro recalled the most demonic hailstorm he'd ever experienced assaulting the motel room windows last night. He couldn't sleep a wink until it passed. He direly wished not to be caught exposed in such weather.

Once again, Bokuto checked his phone: 7:32, though it felt like 10 minutes since his last obsessive look. He noted the lack of bars at the top of his phone screen. Futilely he'd tried to find signal at any point near the station, only to realize in this forsaken spot 45 miles from civilization, he couldn't check the train's arrival time, call a taxi to rescue him, or text Akaashi to advise him of the trouble. He looked at the dilapidated stationhouse built sometime in the 1800s, forebodingly boarded up like an airtight container. A rotting, rain-faded sign cruelly advertised the door to the sealed restroom. Bokuto had already relieved himself at the other end of the platform, eerily watching the moisture hit the parched, yellow dirt and dry up instantly. Against his better judgment he finished off the last trickle of the only water bottle he'd snagged from town. His snack pack had already been munched dry yesterday. He planned to buy more on the train.

The train he didn't know was coming.

7:34, his phone read. If he wandered too far from the station to get cell signal, he was liable to miss the train if it did arrive. Was it even going to arrive? They don't just _cancel_ trains, he told himself. When 7:35 appeared, he glanced at the storm brewing in the distance. He gulped with what little saliva hadn't evaporated from his mouth.

All around him, insects too large for their own good were emerging in the twilight. No longer did he care about the coach's wrath. He feared what else might emerge from the shadows after dark. The station afforded no shelter or protection, and he was out of water with a growling stomach. He had to get back to civilization.

Kotaro peered around the other side of the stationhouse. The access road for the lonely building circled into the distance either direction. He facetiously told himself he should go west, as that would take him closer to his teammates—a mere 300 miles away. He could make it by tomorrow, he pointlessly tried to convince himself.

Then there was the road curving east. He was sure that was the direction the taxi came from when it pulled off the highway. How far away was it? Would the rural roadway be in the path of cell towers? Maybe he could hitchhike? (Alone in a foreign country in the middle of nowhere? Suddenly hitchhiking seemed like a bad idea.)

Was the highway even in that direction?, he second-guessed. Maybe it was to the west. He honestly couldn't recall.

What if he left the road entirely? Perhaps he'd reach the highway faster if he walked in a straight line—if he didn't get harassed by beetles, lizards, rattlesnakes, poisonous spiders, komodo dragons, and all the other wildlife their hosts warned the team to steer clear of. "But you won't have to worry about that because you're in the city!" they had cheerfully appended. Bokuto wished he were in the city as the storm seemed to grow in intensity before his eyes. 7:36, his phone read now, the act of checking so habitual he was no longer sure whether he looked at the time or not.

What if he left the station, and they never found him?

He shrugged back to the platform to his suitcases. Leaving the station meant abandoning his heavy but sentimental possessions—everything from extra clothes to his prized but currently useless electronics. He sat down in the shade of his unkemptly stacked luggage and tucked in his knees. The train was about to come, he thought. He knew it was. It simply had to. He was overreacting.

It felt like three more hours had passed, but it was only 8:30. The storm now had definitely grown and was approaching. Suitcases were no protection from hail. He'd distracted himself through some overdue warmups and had started resorting to volleyball-parkour against the eroding stone walls of the stationhouse. At least until dehydration began to get to him. He began to get a headache but had no water to swallow a pain pill. Kotaro peered around the stationhouse at the forbidding distance, turning darker and darker by the second. The silence was so broad he swore he could hear the bestial nightlife crawling, chirping, and slithering their ways out of hiding. It was like they were setting booby traps for him.

"No need to fear," he told himself, "I'm smarter than them!" He inhaled and exhaled to psych himself up into marching into the distance, yet his muscles wouldn't move. "Dang it," he complained. He didn't want to leave his stuff, even if attachment to them might cost him his life. And he was afraid. Afraid that no one would ever find him if he left.

"A note! That's what they all do!" he snapped. He threw used clothes onto the dust-saturated platform till he dug out a notebook, ripped out a page, and tried to write:

"Went to get help. I'm—"

He paused. He meant to say which direction he was going but now no longer remembered north from south. Nor had he decided where exactly he was headed. "going that way" he scribbled down and drew an arrow pointed down the road he thought went east. No matter. If he changed his mind, he could just flip the paper the other direction. He tried futilely to lay it atop his suitcases, only for the wind to haul it away.

Surely it was 9 o'clock now, Bokuto thought.

8:35. And he threw his phone on the cement in rage. The device bounced along the platform. Bokuto could see shards of plastic snapping off as it pogoed on the railroad track then spun on one end. He scooped up the device; a corner was missing, and he could see some electric board inside was chipped. The cracked screen displayed the provider's logo and then went a lifeless gray. It wouldn't come back to life.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no!" Kotaro desperately tried to reactivate the machine. For reasons he wasn't sure, his eyes were tearing up. After 30 seconds, he dropped the useless case and kneeled forward. He slammed his fist on the gritty concrete as he rubbed his hair into the sand, his cheeks coating with dusty tears, and let out a scream.

"Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?!" he moaned aloud. He heaved in the dusty air as his head collapsed into his forearms on the platform.

After a few moments, he wobbled upright.

He had to find civilization on his own now, by any means possible. He stumbled along the platform, his back to his suitcases, unwilling to look at his stuff for fear he'd chain himself into inaction again. He dipped his hand in his pocket to check the time on his phone, only to realize he didn't have it.

"Well, it's only 8:38," he mocked himself.

"What are you on about?" came a deep voice.

Bokuto froze. Incredulously he'd heard someone else. He spun around, sure that the speaker was…

Akaashi.

"Your train got stuck in a thunderstorm. I figured you'd be too stupid to check the schedule. Car's out front," Akaashi bluntly announced.

Bokuto beheld his teammate momentarily.

"Akaashi! You saved me!" He charged melodramatically to give Keiji a hug, the latter man slamming a palm against Kotaro's forehead to push him away.

"You owe me, you know?" he barked over Bokuto's grovels. "By the way, what were you doing just now?"

The question snapped Kotaro to reality, and he backed off.

"Nothing!" he cockily asserted. "I knew you'd come for me, so I was just waiting to see how long it would take. You're _late_!"

"Sure, I'm late. And next time when I'm 'late,' don't throw your phone on the ground and then cry over it. It's pathetic." Akaashi grabbed one of Kotaro's suitcases and marched towards the car whose engine was churning on the road. Bokuto didn't move, staring blankly into the distance, somehow feeling that hailstones pelting his skin wouldn't have been so bad after all.

"You coming, or am I leaving?" Akaashi called.

"Yes," Kotaro whined and carried the last suitcase with a sulk.


End file.
